A Discussion of the Effect of Musical Context on Perception of Succession of Musical Events, and its Relevance for Philosophical Models of Temporal Experience

Abstract

The article reviewed in this commentary takes philosophical models of temporal experience as its starting point, in an exploration of how an "experience of succession" may be distinguished from a mere "succession of experience". It is proposed that context is the important factor in differentiating the two experiences, rather than duration. Context is accounted for in broad terms, with specific discussion of gesture, performance environment, and mental imagery. The discussion may usefully pave the way for future collaboration between philosophers and psychologists. However, there are multiple fundamental findings in music cognition research, vital to any consideration of the context in which musical experiences occur (e.g. meter, tonality, expectation, familiarity), that could be factored into this discussion. The ideas discussed could be developed with greater consideration of recent empirical studies in music perception. Perhaps then a theoretical model of the experience of succession of musical events could give rise to experimental hypotheses, which may then be tested in order to further refine such models. KON (2014, this issue) proposes that theoretical models of time perception may incorporate empirical investigations in order to be useful in future work relating to embodied music cognition. To demonstrate this, the author explores the phenomena of the succession of experience (SoE), and the experience of succession (EoS). Whilst the former describes an awareness of multiple experiences in succession, the latter includes an additional factor -the sensation of one experience as following on from the previous. It is proposed that the two are not distinguished from one another merely by duration (i.e. EoSs as occurring over a short interval, after Phillips, forthcoming), but rather that their distinction depends upon the context of the experience. An example given is that of a C major broken chord, played either allegro (lasting no more than a second in all), or with an interval of an hour between each of the three notes. It is proposed that the former gives rise to an EoS, as if you were to hear the G4 of this sequence your attention would encompass all of the notes in the chord. It could be argued that this awareness would be direct and not require inference. An SoE, on the other hand, would need inference in the recall of the previous notes, which would appear in consciousness as separate entities. However, once again the extent to which the experience is direct and requires inference is found to be inadequate in accounting for the difference between an EoS and an SoE, particularly when considering the roles of attention and memory. The paper seeks to outline how context may be a more useful tool than duration in distinguishing the two experiences, and how this factor may be included in three philosophical models: 1) the Retentionalist Model captures the notion of the specious present, and proposes that previous events may be "retained" to the extent that they appear simultaneous with the curr...